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From an inventor’s vision to the grant of a U.S. or foreign patent, our attorneys provide clients with a full range of patent services, including patentability assessment; patent application preparation and prosecution, both in the United States and worldwide; appeals; oppositions; patent maintenance; counseling regarding infringement avoidance; and validity and infringement studies and opinions. Our group is comprised of over 90 attorneys, patent agents and specialists registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Four major concentrations, focused by technical discipline, serve as the foundation of our Intellectual Property – Patents practice: Mechanical; Electronics and Computer Technology; and Biotechnology; and Chemical and Pharmaceutical. In 2014, we filed over 1,350 patent applications in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and about 800 U.S. patents were awarded to our clients. Now is an exciting time in intellectual property with the passage of the America Invents Act (AIA), and our attorneys remain on the cutting edge of inter partes and post-grant review developments.

We have an active foreign patent practice, filing approximately 180 PCT applications and 1,000 patent applications in over 73 countries worldwide in 2014. Several of our attorneys have had extensive involvement in opposition proceedings and hearings before the European Patent Office in Munich. Others have significant experience in managing patent and trademark enforcement proceedings in China.

Once again, Alston & Bird’s IP Litigation, Patent Prosecution, Licensing and ITC Section 337 practices all ranked highly in Intellectual Asset Management magazine’s adjunct publication, IAM Patent 1000 – The World’s Leading Patent Professionals. The firm earned Gold rankings overall in both Georgia and North Carolina. The firm earned a Bronze ranking in the litigation category for both Washington, D.C., New York and California. (May 2015)

For another consecutive year, Alston & Bird was listed as a "Top Patent Firm" by Intellectual Property Today, placing us in the top 25 percent of more than 271 firms included in the survey. (March 2015)

Intellectual Asset Management deemed our patent prosecutors as Paragons of Prosecution in the industrials patent classification (top 10 firms in the United States for patent quality). (May/June 2012)

Seventeen Alston & Bird attorneys have been named “IP Stars” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine. The attorneys are selected based on the publication’s annual research into the IP market, as well as publicly available information and client and peer comments. The listed attorneys and their practices are:

Ben Pleune comments on a Federal Circuit ruling that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is not required to review all patent claims challenged in an inter partes review and what it means for patent owners and petitioners.

After much public comment and debate, new changes to rules for post-grant administrative trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) go into effect on May 2, 2016. These final rule changes, which are the second set of changes since the America Invents Act (AIA) went into effect, are the culmination of a series of PTAB listening tours and public comments to the rule change proposals published in August 2015.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Alice has led to countless district court and numerous federal circuit decisions holding business methods and software patents invalid for claiming ineligible subject matter.

Ever since a major patent decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, patents have seemed to be invalidated right and left. But is that a result of the decision itself, or because of the feedback loop caused by the process by which patents are challenged?

The USPTO’s final rules implementing the Hague Agreement’s international application system for design patents are now here, but taking advantage of the new design protection regime requires careful planning and consideration.

Software patents have always been expensive but potentially valuable investments for a business; however, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (2014) has brought this value into question. Since the decision, patentees, attorneys and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) personnel alike have been left confused and uncertain about the effects of Alice on patents.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp v. CLS Bank has reshaped the legal landscape of patentable subject matter under Section 101 of the Patent Act. Ten months after that decision, the long-term effects are starting to emerge.